MEMORY TEXT: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:7).

I was invited to speak at one of the prisons which is run by the State of Florida. Each week the prison administration allows our church to conduct meetings with the prisoners who choose to come.

After my short sermon was over, one of the prisoners talked with me about his spiritual life. He told me with a smile on this face, “I’ve been saved twenty-three times.”

Does a person who has truly repented of sin ever return and practice the same sins which he repented of? If we have a spirit of repentance every day, the answer is, No. But if we are repentant some days and not others, the answer could be, Yes.

A person who has truly repented of their sins may at times be overtaken and surprised by temptations, and they may even fall into sins that they have truly repented of. Yet such a person will get up and repent again of what they have done.

When we are truly repentant, we will love the things we used to hate and hate the things we used to love. There are those who have quit committing certain sins because they are afraid of what will happen to them if they don’t. But this is not true repentance. This is like the little boy whose mother told him to sit down. The child didn’t want to obey his mother, and so he told her that he would sit down but in his mind he was still standing up.

When we are truly repentant, we will not only stop doing the things we ought not to do but we will direct our lives in the pursuit of a victorious Christian life. I like the word of the Lord in Isaiah 1:16: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil.” True repentance is from the inside out. When the heart is changed, the life will be changed.

James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” What this tells me is that the good and perfect gift of repentance comes to us from our heavenly Father. Ask Him for it today.